Game Overview
I was the sole developer behind “Obby but you’re a balloon”, a wildly successful obstacle course game on Roblox.
Created in October 2024, the game twists the traditional Roblox “obby” genre by giving players a completely different form of movement. Instead of a standard character walking and jumping, you play as a literal balloon. Players have to inflate and deflate to float over massive gaps, dodge hazardous obstacles like monkeys with darts, collect bananas, and explore heavily themed environments alongside their friends.
It exploded in popularity shortly after launch and has since achieved incredible performance on the platform, racking up over 3,750,000 visits, over 15,000 favorites, and reaching thousands of concurrent players.
Featured by Creators
Because of its unique mechanics and viral appeal, Obby but you’re a balloon caught the attention of several massive YouTubers, generating millions of views across the platform! Some of the most notable playthroughs include:
Seeing my solo project played by some of the biggest names in the Roblox community was an incredibly surreal experience and a major milestone for me as a developer.
Player Feedback
"This was genuinely like the best obby I've ever played I loved the bananas and the unique mechanics! I also kinda freaked out when I saw the jojos poster too. All and all I really appreciate you for creating this game!"
"This game was amazing! The animations are nice and I love the levels. I genuinely cant wait for more levels to come out I had so much fun playing this. Seeing an actual good game is a rare sight!"
"The balloon obby is very fun, especially finding the bananas, it's like finding clues to piece together, it's very entertaining and an amazing game!"
"Thank you for this game, loved it! Hope you will continue to add more levels and mechanics. It made me nostalgic for some reason, anyway thank you so much!"
"It's sooooo cool and unique! Can you make more colors for our balloon?"
"Really fun especially when playing with a friend. I can't wait for the next update!"
Media Gallery
Technical & Design Highlights
As the solo developer, I was responsible for the entire pipeline from prototyping the core floating mechanics to full release and live operations:
- Custom Player Controller: Completely overwrote the default Roblox character humanoid to support balloon physics, inflation/deflation states, and smooth floating mechanics.
- Level Design: Built expansive, multi biome levels that progressively introduce new mechanics while balancing difficulty for a very wide demographic of players.
- Monetization & Engagement: Integrated engaging collectibles (bananas) and unlockable skins to drive player retention and long term progression.
- Performance Optimization: Optimized the entire map to ensure players on low end devices experienced zero lag. I achieved this by aggressively disabling shadows on meshes and parts, stripping complex collisions in favor of simple collision boxes, and keeping the vast majority of gameplay mechanics strictly client authoritative.
You can check out the game live on Roblox here: Play “obby but you’re a balloon”
Retrospective
Looking back on this project, I have a lot of mixed but ultimately positive feelings. It was incredibly fun building a game that friend groups could enjoy together, and it was surprisingly rewarding to watch completionists hunt down every single hidden banana to unlock all the customization options.
However, the development process definitely had its hurdles. I put an enormous amount of effort into detailing the map right at the start, which accidentally set such a high standard for the environment art that working on future updates became pretty demotivating. The scripting foundation was also a bit messy under the hood, but it served as a fantastic learning experience that I took straight into my next project.
I also faced some community backlash for using AI generated icons for the user interface. That feedback was a loud and clear lesson. Moving forward, I have decided to completely step away from using AI for final production assets. I still occasionally use it to quickly generate placeholder images during early prototyping, but I will not be proudly showcasing it in a finished game again.
Overall, this was a massive stepping stone for me as a developer, and seeing millions of people enjoy something I built from scratch makes every single challenge totally worth it.